Build Fortress Island.

http://imgur.com/a/rCc4R With shaders.
http://imgur.com/a/DhugC Without shaders.
-Note about the history- If there are spelling errors or grammatical errors it's because I didn't really spend to much time looking that over. The History of the island is an alternate history thing so if I say something Historically inaccurate plz say something. But by that I don't mean, "Well if this guy died then bla bla bla huge chain reaction, this would never happen." Nothing like that. I mean like if I am portraying something as historic fact that is not fact say something.

Spoiler: Very long thing about the History of the island.

The history of the island of jazirat alqalea.


The history of this island starts with the Moors invasion of the Iberian peninsula.

After the Moors quite successful long time success in the iberian peninsula they encountered what seemed like the what could be the end of this success. An army of about 30,000 Frank’s that were led by Charles Martel. Martel was soul bent on kicking the Moors out of europe and making the Frank’s the dominant force of Gaul. Realistically the Moors should have lost. The Franks large amounts of heavy infantry would have been able the take the Moors large amounts of caverly easily. But just by dumb luck Charles Martel died of dysentery. This started a chain reaction of confusion and by the time the Moors and the Franks meet of the battle field, near Tours and Poitiers no real order had been established. But the Franks still did the best they could and they did very well with little command structure. But in the end the franks were routed. But by this time the army the moors had was crumbled too. This battle effectively ended the moorish invasion of europe, but they were not pushed out of europe. This led to an unofficial peace treaty between the franks and the moors because both of them had no real army to fight with.


After this the the Moors ambition of spreading islam into europe died down. Not much happened after this just. The moors just built up infrastructure and started training new armies for defense purposes, something they lacked in the past. But by the time of the fifth crusade the crusaders had their eyes set on the Iberian peninsula. But like most crusades it was an outright fail and the crusaders were utterly defeated. After this for just about every other crusade there was a smaller army sent to the Iberian peninsula. Every time it failed. Although it did boost moral for the people. Because of all these victories it seemed that there military made them and impenetrable fortress of a nation.


Again not much happened the enlightenment and the renaissance had its effect on the moors but other than that, no wars and because they were used to not expanding by the time of european imperialism they did little to expand overseas in the new world. But then French revolution.


The french revolution took place as it does. Robespierre took power offed the kings head started the Reign of Terror Napoleon took power. Now Napoleon had his eyes set on the Iberian peninsula. Napoleon's armies invaded with much success but the moors had, had hundreds of years to be ready for war and were just as advanced as any other european nation, maybe even more. And Napoleon Was driven out of the nation. But one thing happened. The seeds of the french revolution were planted in the Moors. And the people were causing chaos and overthrowing the aristocrats and rulers of the nation. Seeing this napoleon backed the anarchists and revolutionaries and with french support they overthrow the ruling government. The french would take this and make it a puppet state under a new name, Iberian france.


But history would take it’s course and Napoleon once master of europe would fall after his unsuccessful invasion of Russia, and with him came Iberian france. Now the generals and officials put in to govern Iberian France were spared, and like Napoleon were given an island to make home on jazirat alqalea, or fortress island in arabic. -I used google translate for this so it could be wrong.-


They were given this island because it was Very small and only have one gothic castle it. They europeans thought it would be a place where the officials could live out their lives on and die without causing controversy. The reason they were not just killed was because of fear that their deaths would spark more revolution because these officials were leaders of the revolutions.


These leaders were not interested in living out a peaceful life on a small island so they started smuggling in supplies and where building as many houses on the island as they could fit. They then stocked this houses with soldiers and workers loyal to the revolution. After that they turned the gothic castle into a factory of sorts and started making weaponry and munitions. Once the european powers realised this they sent ships to take invade the island. But one thing they neglected was that there was a reason it was called Fortress island. The cliffs were completely unclimbable and they were so high cannons on the ships would do nothing to hurt anyone on the island. The only way onto the island were some wooden stairs. But they were cut down. Now the only way to get people and supplies onto the island was a complex pulley system that was built every time anything had to be pulled onto the island. Now the next idea was to blockade the island. But the chief engineers had created arterly powerful enough to hit any ship that got anywhere near the island. But by the time the ships were out of the rang of the cannons they were so far away from the island that they were not even blockading it they were just somewhat near it and any ship could just go on by without even being seen.


Now we come to where the island is now. All they have done after this is roll down Huge flags of the revolution to remind any ship that can see it that they are still alive and they will never back down.

 

good job bob

 

I like the terrain more than anything. 10/10

 

I dislike the houses, I understand the Mega Build vibe but find that the houses should have more depth and detail, also, The walls of the castle are very bland, very minimal texture, however, the roofs of the castle are awesome! just work on the walls and I personally think the build would look much better. I love the chimneys detail. I also love the palette of the castle, very gray theme with a contrast with dark brown.

 

I see what you mean but you do understand that I am going for a realistic look. The castle is a Gothic castle and if you look at them in real life you will see what I am going for. The houses where based of the mid-evil German houses which where big and did not have lot's of needless detail, just boards of wood to hold up the walls. I feel that adding a lot of detail to a build takes away realism and makes it look cluttered and disgusting to look at. I also feel adding detail is a cop out and a cheep way to make builds look good and the way to make builds look good without spamming detail is to make them look realistic and stick to real life artistic conventions and principles set out by artists much better than any of us. Which is something I think most builders forget.

 

Oh! in that case its great, I just see way too many builders build with incorrectness in the general themes, I understand you cannot just spam so much detail on every build become it would ruin the atmosphere and theme of what you are going for, I just automatically assumed that you feel into the high percentage of builders that lack the details and such.. but if that is the theme, then you have made a build corresponding to that theme nicely, Love it bro!

 

Why do you feel the need to patronize me? I was just trying to show what I was going for. Did I some how make upset you? I was not really trying to.

 

Hey, If I hurt you im deeply sorry, I didn't mean it as a insult or I wasn't trying to patronize you, I was only saying that many people, when they build they lack depth and detail in their builds , E.G square houses and such and like where the walls have no depth, and I thought you had that problem, but , you explained to be your perspective on the german house thing and then I understood, I was just trying to tell you that I was wrong about my comment on the lack of detail thing, I really feel bad that you feel patronized, I was just trying to say I was wrong, I'm sorry for not being very too the point and I hope we can be cool.

 

If you are really not patronizing me it's no problem, but your tone seems very sarcastic and it's hard for me to take it seriously. But that might just be me. XD

 

Dude, I would never put down another builder,Art is unique, people have different ways of it so who am i to criticize if its shit or not, I have a shit way of typing anyways xD I hope we are cool

 

Hey Bob! I love the build you've made, and the lore is very long and extensive! I appreciate the passion you put into building and sharing your works with others!

To start off, it's a very lovely concept! The structures look very large and well done. However, I see a lot of blank spaces of nothing which worries me. Perhaps you could add slits in the wall as a defensive and exterior design? Or maybe you could add more vegetation on the island.
The houses look great with the wattle and duab, but I don't see many interesting points to really focus on. I love your builds so try not to get me wrong, but maybe if you add lots of detail in the spaces provided, people will look at your works longer and with more eagerness(or something). I only say this because I work on a team to create lots of medieval builds and cities on a different perspective of building without traditional aesthetics. Even if you're not going for a realistic build entirely, I definitely know you'd agree to build more things in the empty walls.
As for the vegetation, I'd suggest more block variation for the island itself. Maybe some Granite and polished granite can highlight the tops of rocks while the adesite hides just before the shaded region. Also bushes! Bushes tend to add a very interesting landscape to work on, and trees further this idea by covering parts of the build that make you engage with the build as you try to find and angle to see parts more clearly. This concept is called atmosphere and really helps the viewer feel the "vibes" from the build!
For the style itself, I do enjoy it. Although it may seem very square-ish and vertical-horizontal, if that's the style you were going for, then bravo! In the case that you want your builds to feel more attributed to true medieval houses, try to add curves. Curves in the Wattle n Duab framework, the castle walls and towers, the roofs of the houses, and think about thickening the base with cobblestone or stonebrick as the outline instead of wood.

This is definitely way too long so I apologize that you'll probably never be motivated to read it. If you would like, I'd be more than willing to condense it into a simple list of things.

In the end, however, this is your build, and I fully understand that you can do whatever you would like with it. So have fun and happy building! =)

(Sorry if I potentially offended you with anything I said)

 

I wish I looked as good as your builds

 

I have taken the time to read what you said, and I do appreciate though out criticisms, so I will address every one of your points.The slits in the wall, I am assuming you are talking about the castle. I thought about that but then I decided not to because the castle was not intended to be defensive. it was most likely a castle where a noble wanted to play soldier without fighting. I can agree that the island should have had more vegetation. I can see what you are saying that there is nothing to focus on but by details, do you mean like flower pots and lamps and things to make it interesting? About the terrain I did have an idea of making the terrain very interesting with many blocks but then I thought that that would take attention away from the island. The island was always ment to be a dumb rock in the middle of the ocean. But if I wanted to focus on making it look the best and not realistic I would have done something like you said. I was going for a boxy look but I do have to say I don't think mid evil it the right word for theses houses. I know I used it but I don't really know what they are called. They are meant to be like houses made between 18th and early 19th century. Not quite mid evil but also not like Victorian. I see what you mean about using wood as basses. one thing you can see is my progression of trying to build houses on this.

Spoiler: The newest houses

Those two houses are the newest ones and the ones that I think most fit in mid evil style. I would have changed the other houses to be like it, but houses built in real life come in many different styles. I do see now that wood in the base was a bad idea. I did think about changing it. -which would take like two minutes- but I was too lazy to do it. XD

 

this took me 3 tries to pronnounce

 

noice build

 

It's arabic and I used google translate to get it.

 

Thanks for reading it lol. For the castle, even though they look like a defensive part, they can be used as an exterior decoration while doubling as a long narrow window. For the rock, I was thinking along those lines with details. You can integrate multiple textures and shades of grey if you want to make the build as a whole look more clean and complete (not saying it looks incomplete).
As I said before, it's a very nice city and fortress! Hope I can see more of your builds later on. =]

 

Oml thats awesome, I love the sandstone/Nether brick combination

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NVM, its dark oak, I'm blind af

 

The structures are too flat; the flag needs to be more wavy.

It's good, but you should add some depth

 

everyones mentioning about the depth bullshit when really you are re-creating a german theme correct? lol, I like everything thats better than my unoriginal rustic builds, you have some unique talent.